


A Family Tree Without Leaves

by orphan_account



Category: Arrested Development
Genre: Angst, Brother/Sister Incest, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-18
Updated: 2007-01-18
Packaged: 2019-08-22 21:47:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16606034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: unaired scenes set to the tune of cliched and overused plot devices; or, in other words, the most dreadful comedy of all: how and maybe why Michael Bluth (the reluctant hero) and Lindsay Bluth (the tragic heroine) began (continue and end) an ill-advised love affair.





	A Family Tree Without Leaves

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Family Tree Without Leaves](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/432290) by falseeeyelashes. 



our comedies are not to be laughed at.

(samuel goldwyn)

 

* * *

 

And now—the story of a brother and a sister and how they came to sleep with each other. A lot.

(The first thing you should probably know, there’s a kind of legacy here.)

 

* * *

 

(The second thing you should probably know? This isn’t going to end well. At all.)

Cue the laugh track.

 

* * *

 

Like everything else, this wasn’t Lindsay’s fault. In fact, she blames it on bad literature.

She read _Flowers in the Attic_ when she was twelve or eleven or some age that was probably too young, but still. She read the book and she was old enough to get the fact that the brother and the sister of the story were mad about each other in a totally non-sibling like way.

After she finished that last page (hot summer month and there were no front porches but there were tanned legs) she couldn’t look Michael in the eye for a week.

(The part she won’t admit aloud? She had pictured him the entire time she read that shitty, fucked-up book.)

 

* * *

 

She sees him for the first time after his wife’s funeral at one of her own little activist functions. There’s a banner that flaps in the wind and rich people (friends of her father, friends of her mother) pour out of limousines and Cadillacs they didn’t drive.

They were fighting melanoma at a beachside cookout or something like that and Tobias wore a Speedo and a bowtie, claiming it was ‘dressy casual’ for the event (he had looked like a sad, balding Chippendale; she pretended she didn’t know him or how he was invited, despite the fact all present knew him as her husband).

She wore a sundress that cost too much money and was too many different colors and her sunglasses hid half her face and by the time Michael arrived she was three drinks in.

"Michael," she had said in that voice that sounds like both the start of a laugh and the start of their usual taunting and teasing.

"You look good," he said, and had kissed her on the cheek.

The next time she sees him, her father is retiring and Michael is living in the attic of a Bluth model home and she’s kind of homeless. The next time she sees him, it’s a whole year later.

 

* * *

 

At one point, you should know, she really did want to save the world.

 

* * *

 

His wife died in the summer. The entire family turned out for the funeral and they each made a scene in their own individual way (GOB with the never-ending black handkerchiefs and Tobias with the theatrical sobbing and her mother with her parting words: "I actually liked her").

She had stood behind him during the service, her right shoe more uncomfortable than the left and the priest or the minister or whatever had said a lot of final, finite things, like ‘forever,’ and ‘heaven’ and ‘death.’

Lucille Bluth had said that it was all lovely, but the flowers could have been a little nicer. Lindsay hovered around the buffet table because she didn’t know these people here (all his wife’s family, all dressed in black) and finally, after picking at her food and sipping too-warm wine, Michael met her in the hall by the kitchen; he had enveloped her in a hug.

"Thank you," he had whispered into her hair, one hand tightly gripping her shoulder, the other spanned along the length of her ribs.

In the background, Tobias had muttered, "Oh, oh, and down she goes!" as a small potted tree fell at his feet.

 

* * *

 

She used to like how when he would laugh, when she would sometimes make him laugh with something ridiculous or honest that she’d say, it always came accompanied with that wide grin. He’d laugh, and he’d sound embarrassed for it, and the funny thing is, she still likes him for that.

(She laughs as though she has been trained, the right pitch to hit, how not to snort, keep the face from flushing bright red. She blames Lucille for this.)

 

* * *

 

He went away to college. She didn’t.

 

* * *

 

_The Hotel New Hampshire_ came out when she was in her late teens, she might have been twenty, and she was bored and made the mistake of wandering into a movie theater in the late afternoon.

She rushed out of the theater as Rob Lowe fucked Jodie Foster; she left as the brother of the film fucked his sister.

(Here’s the part that matters: she returned a day or two later, forked over a handful of bills and some change and sat alone in the theater, holding her breath throughout the entire film.

The popcorn she ate was stale.)

 

* * *

 

(There's a legacy here.)

 

* * *

 

She was like twelve, or thirteen maybe. Something. Her hair was long and blonde and he was wearing a striped polo and she had tried to talk him into letting her practice kissing with him. His face went all red, and she was just, "What? It’d be research?" and he ran off, muttering some excuse involving the banana stand.

In retrospect, the phallic symbolism is there.

(This is all exposition. What you should know: they don’t actually kiss—really kiss—until they are both sleeping under the same roof of a poorly constructed Bluth home.)

 

* * *

 

So, Michael, while playing the role of the penultimate good guy, just so happens to be in love (or maybe just lust, she thinks) with GOB’s girlfriend.

It’s funny and it’s typical and as he maps out a plan to steal the girl and ride off into the sunset, Lindsay can’t help but burst his bubble.

"You’re too good. You’re the noble one. The one that never wins. The loser. The fool," she tells him, and a small part of her wishes she was lying as he walks away.

 

* * *

 

She had behaved herself for the most part throughout their childhood, formative years. She had big hair and messed around with boys in the backseat of cars (but stopped short of wearing their lettermen jacket, going steady and exchanging class rings and words like ‘forever’).

Michael was on the honor roll and on the debate team or chess team or whatever it is that nerds do while in high school (Lindsay wouldn’t know).

She behaved herself, except, there was the one time they went camping with Uncle Oscar.

She was sixteen or seventeen, and so was he, and Buster spent the entire time in his own personal tent, spraying bug spray at anyone who dared approach him. The mosquitoes bit and the lake smelled bad; GOB played with fire and in the end she ended up sharing a tent with Michael (read: an all-too-convenient set-up).

It started, like all things, as an accident. She rolled over. And he was there.

He wore flannel pants and the night was warm and neither of them were inside their respective sleeping bags. And it’s funny because it’s wrong and she didn’t try to talk herself out of anything and just thought of summer days and bad books and that dorky smile of his and how close he is right now.

A tilt of her hips, her leg moved up, she tilted her hips again. She was sixteen or seventeen and it’s not like she had never done this before (she had) but it hadn’t felt like this. She had moved her hips again, and yes, he was hard against, and yes, it felt just too good.

And, Michael, his eyes had flickered open, there was that look of surprise mixed with horror and embarrassment, but more than that, there was the bucking of his hips in return. She had one leg wrapped around his hips, his hands clutching her silky pajama bottoms, panting in her ear.

(Just like that, the tent flap was thrown up—he rolled one way, she the other. GOB stood there, backlit by the moon, a stick on fire in his hand, and, "Flaming marshmallows?" he had said.)

They never talked about it.

 

* * *

 

He married in July, in the heat, but not the sun.

Michael’s wedding was painfully boring. Or maybe just painful. She doesn’t care to remember.

For the occasion, she bought the tackiest, most lurid gown she could get her hands on and dominated the reception with stories that may or may not have happened in the past.

She drank too much champagne and as the bride and groom were leaving, she grabbed Michael by the arm and kissed him longer and harder on the cheek (too close to his mouth) than she should have. She yelled ‘good-bye’ in his ear over "YMCA" playing in the background when she probably should have said ‘congratulations.’

(His hand had wrapped around her hip, that funny smile on his face; he said ‘good-bye,’ too.)

She met Tobias three days later, She married him four months after that.

 

* * *

 

They get drunk together off expensive vodka and somewhere in the back of her mind is a favor she needs to ask of him. Somehow, instead, they’re on the subject of his inability to find romance and her own disheartening excuse of a marriage.

"Why don’t you two just do us all, and well, yourselves, a favor and get a divorce?" he asks.

"Because, Michael. It’s family. I mean, we’re family." She sighs. "You wouldn’t understand."

 

* * *

 

She really had wanted to save her marriage.

 

* * *

 

Her wedding was kind of a big deal. Her mother hated her fiancée; hell, she near hated her fiancée, yet it was still one of the greatest Bluth events of that particular decade (it was a slow ten years).

Their kiss at the altar was awkward, dry and mildly embarrassing. (Insert: wedding picture—Lindsay’s back poker-straight, bad 80’s hair, fists clenching her white dress, puckered lips; Tobias’s arms reaching back for whatever reason and he looks vaguely close to tears.)

She would say that it was like kissing her brother or something, but, well, what a lie that would turn out to be.

 

* * *

 

You could call Lindsay many things (including but not limited to, ‘bitch,’ ‘skank,’ ‘slut,’ ‘concerned activist’ and, sometimes, ‘mother’). ‘Happy’ really isn’t one of them.

 

* * *

 

These are the things that make Lindsay happy:

black Chanel sunglasses paid for on the Bluth company credit card;

anything paid for on the Bluth company credit card;

a stiff drink with breakfast (lunch, and/or dinner—scratch that; make it a stiff drink, whenever);

proving one Michael Bluth wrong;

charity events she sponsors/gives her an excuse to buy an outlandishly expensive get-up she’ll only wear once;

getting her father—the recently imprisoned George Bluth, Sr.—to spend extravagant sums of money in her name;

extravagant sums of money in her name;

good, no, really good, really incredible, mind-blowing sex (note: she hasn’t been this kind of happy in a long, long, really long time);

and other things she is far too proud to ever admit (ie. getting the one-up on Lucille Bluth, pulling off a _Gilmore Girls-_ esque bonding moment with Maeby, Michael—no. We stop here.)

 

* * *

 

She visits a psychic because she’s bored and because it only costs ten dollars and Michael kept repeating the phrase ‘frozen assets’ an entire weekend straight, and she’s not stupid enough to test him or the credit card company.

She walks in and bells jingle at the door and it’s still California outside (and if you’re paying attention this is where the next plot device is introduced: the self-fulfilling prophecy).

She sits at a table, and, yes, this is stupid, and when the woman before her, clad unsurprisingly in a long flowing skirt and bangles and baubles and beads and glasses on the tip of her nose, draws a card, and mutters, "Ah, yes," Lindsay decides that she’s had enough and rises with a condescending smile.

"Yeah. That’s enough," she says, and turns, purse over her shoulder, muttering about how she can keep her ten goddamned dollars.

The psychic lays the card down. It’s the Fool (as in the card of infinite possibilities; the Fool travels, so filled with wonder and hope and dreams he doesn’t see the cliff he’s walking toward).

Lindsay catches a cab home.

 

* * *

 

There’s this sentence Lindsay never says. To anyone (least of all to him, but that’s to be assumed).

It goes a little bit like, ‘do you love me?’ because, really, let’s not be silly nor naïve: Lindsay Bluth is one of the most desperately insecure women you might ever have the misfortune to meet.

But, you see, this isn’t the kind of family where words like ‘I love you’ and ‘sweet dreams’ are exchanged; it’s a family where honesty crops up in the oddest of places, and maybe that’s why Lindsay Bluth doesn’t say a word on the subject.

She buys a pair of shoes instead.

 

* * *

 

The air-conditioning stops working in the model home. In all stories, this is the point when the sweat begins to pour and the sexual tension gets ratcheted up a notch.

This story is no exception.

 

* * *

 

The TV is on. Lindsay is spread across the length of the couch, GOB along the reclining chair, which doesn’t in fact, actually recline, Michael sits on the floor, knees bent slightly, uncomfortably, back resting against the couch. (Lindsay’s feet are above his shoulder, and every so often, she’ll shift, or maybe it’s him, and her foot will meet his shoulder and he’ll move away. She’s not doing this on purpose. Really.)

It turns out (and, hello, irony) that they’re watching the film adaptation of _Flowers in the Attic_.

Her foot brushes his shoulder. He doesn’t move away.

 

* * *

 

"Hey, Mom," Maeby starts.

"Not now," Lindsay answers.

 

* * *

 

She really did want to save this family.

 

* * *

 

This is how things work in this family: GOB is a homeless magician (illusionist) and Buster has been cut loose from Lucille (for now). The remainder of the family resides in a model home that may or may not be falling down (cue footage of closet door falling off its hinges).

In sum: there are seven people living in a house with five beds and a couch. Someone is about to get screwed. Literally. (As stated before, in the business, we call this a lovely set-up for a contrivance we'll label as unavoidable.)

 

* * *

 

And, here, a family meeting begins—

"Mother always tucks me in before bed," Buster says, and this is how it starts.

"Righty-O, Buster, pal," and Lindsay doesn’t know why GOB is being so chummy with Buster, because, well, it’s frankly disturbing.

The next five minutes: Michael explains the too many people, not enough beds dilemma and they all just stand there—GOB with his arms crossed leaning against the wall, she with her drink, and no one suggests a solution. Except for Michael.

"George Michael and Maeby can stay where they are, GOB can take the couch—"

"Hey!"

"I’ll share a room with Buster and Lindsay and Tobias can share the master bedroom."

"Or!" And Tobias holds up a finger like this will be the best idea ever. (It won’t be.) "George Michael and Maeby can share their room, GOB takes the couch—"

"Hey!"

"Lindsay and Buster share our room, and you and I take the master bedroom!"

"That doesn’t make any sense."

(Now comes the arguing and there’s nothing left in her glass but ice and she can feel a headache coming on and she should have bought the red skirt today instead of the orange, because, really, it’s orange and Buster has his hands over his ears and George Michael looks uncomfortable and this is just ridiculous.)

"Fine!" and this is Lindsay stepping in to solve a family crisis; this is something rare—enjoy it. "George Michael and Maeby keep their room, GOB gets the couch—"

"Hey!"

"And Buster and Tobias can take the two beds in our room, and I’ll just bunk with Michael."

George Michael’s eyes widen. In his head, the theme music (or just the music from the two minute opening he saw) of _Les Cousins Dangereux_ plays in his head.

Michael coughs; Lindsay could laugh. "Isn’t that, like, illegal or something?" Michael asks, his voice strangely high-pitched.

"Oh my God, Michael. We’d be sharing a bed. It’s not like we never have before."

(They haven’t.)

"This is kind of awkward," Buster says, bouncing, or more like rocking, on the balls of his feet.

"Yeah, well," Michael finally says. "We’ll just go with that plan."

Lindsay has no idea why she’s excited. (She hasn’t shared a bed with a man in roughly 16 years. Platonic, or otherwise.)

 

* * *

 

They say good-night and he turns off the light and she decides that he breathes far too loud.

She can’t sleep. And she wants to tell him. She really had wanted to save the wetlands.

 

* * *

 

It starts, like all things, as an accident. She rolls over. And he’s there.

 

* * *

 

Her knee rests on his thigh and he sighs but doesn’t waken and her hand falls to his chest, resting on the thin white t-shirt.

(She likes the way he laughs and she likes the way he keeps things standing up the very way they’re supposed to be. She kind of likes the idea of being this close to him, and it’s awful, it’s terrible.)

Her hand slips in under the waistband of his boxers and his skin is hot, damp.

"What?—" he stutters, still sleepy, slow reaction time and she doesn’t reply. Instead—and the air-conditioning is still out and each and every breath seems to hang heavy on the air in the room—she wraps her hand around his cock and tries not to laugh at the shaky, nervous moan from him as his hand latches on to her wrist, tight.

"I—What—no, Lindsay…oh, Jesus—what the fuck are you doing?" he pants, and she does laugh this time, hot air meeting his neck, and his hips buck, her hand moving a little faster—"Oh my God Lindsay you cannot do this what the hell fuck fuck _fuck_ you need (gasp) you need to stop Lindsay stop you need (gasp again) I need—" and she laughs some more. He’s hard against her hand and he mutters the word ‘fuck’ again, quietly.

(His hand is still on her wrist; he’s not trying to pull her away. Some more profanity slips out, under his breath, and this, this is a sign of defeat.)

 

* * *

 

Her hand slips out of his boxers, he lies there breathing heavily, and she pulls her pajama pants and panties down in one quick frantic motion, the clothes collecting at her feet at the end of the bed.

Michael doesn’t say anything.

She clumsily kicks the covers off with her bare legs—Michael’s eyes are wide, staring at her lower half in the dim lighting, and he repeats, "Oh fuck," again and those words still haven’t lost their meaning yet. She’s wet between her legs as she pulls him to her (one hand cupping him through his boxers, the other tight against his hip; he’s not helping her but he sure as hell isn’t fighting her either) and she can’t decide if it’s because it’s Michael or if because it’s so disturbingly wrong. She’s not going to think about it. It may or may not be scaring her.

She pulls his boxers down in a hurry and she can feel his heart beating fast against her chest. Bare hips meeting, their foreheads pressed together and she spreads her legs.

"Lindsay…" he whispers against her mouth and he moves, his hair brushing her face, pushing himself up on his elbows.

And this, this is the part where Lindsay takes matters into her own hands: grabs him in a tight fist and draws him deep inside her.

 

* * *

 

This will end up going one of three ways, Lindsay thinks.

First, he pulls out quickly and goes running to the bathroom, wherein he will sit in the tub, the shower on, crying for a long while and pretending she has no idea this is actually happening. (But on second thought, that might just be Tobias’s—her husband’s—way of coping with disaster, or hell, just a minor setback. This wouldn’t be a minor setback.)

Second, he comes. Immediately. It’s a mess. And unsavory. And she might be overestimating her sexual prowess just a tinge, but still. It could happen. And she’d be left alone in bed with wet sheets and the promise of a really awkward conversation with no received orgasm on her end to even compensate for this said awkwardness. (She really, really hopes it’s not this second option.)

Third, they have sex. They seriously have sex. Only it’s that slow, kind of fumbling, inexperienced sex she, for whatever reason, expects Michael to be only capable of.

She’s not sure why’s she’s doing this.

He pulls out of her, and she braces herself for the first of the three options and kind of bites her lip.

Except, yeah. That doesn’t exactly happen.

Instead—her brother (her fucking brother—she’s fucking her brother)—he slams back into her and the sheets bunch up around her shoulder blades as she slides up the bed a little, a weird gasp escaping her mouth.

He fucks her hard and fast, her legs drawn up around his hips, his hands, sweaty and damp, skidding their way up under her shirt.

Her head falls back, blonde hair everywhere, a strangled moan from him, and he grabs her shirt by the hem and wrenches it over her head. It tangles in her arms, and he doesn’t stop, his hips still moving, mouth on her nipples and the room’s too dark, she can’t see and she disentangles her arms, one hand gripping the back of his neck.

His hips are hot against her own and she thinks she says, "Oh, God," and there’s slight stubble along his jaw that feels good against her palm.

He pulls his white undershirt off, grabbing from the back of his neck (in that certain way that only men seem able to accomplish) and throws it off the side of the bed.

They finally kiss, and it’s a messy collision of teeth and lip and tongue alike. She arches up to meet him, her back aching, tight, and the bed makes dangerous screeching noises with each and every thrust.

(She comes with her nails digging into his back, her heel digging into the small of his back; he comes with his mouth against her neck and her name, slick and heavy against her skin.)

 

* * *

 

They lay there for awhile. Opposite ends of the bed like that Billy Crystal movie she saw but didn’t really get, mainly because she couldn’t get past the idea that she was supposed to find Billy-freaking-Crystal vaguely attractive and, better yet, fuckable (she didn’t).

"So," he says. And stops at that. Her arms are above her head in some kind of post-coital posturing and he’s fidgeting at the hem of the sheet whose seam is fast becoming unraveled.

"I guess we’ll have to move to West Virginia now."

She snorts. "Something like that."

Five minutes pass and neither have moved, her shirt is hanging off the headboard.

"You were kidding, right? Michael? You were kidding? We’re not really going to West Virginia. Are we?"

"Go to sleep, Lindsay," he says.

She tries, and so does he, and they remain motionless on opposite sides of the bed.

 

* * *

 

For breakfast, there are muffins, omelets and a side of awkwardness.

No one else seems to notice anything out of the ordinary (she wears a scarf; her neck still feels raw).

 

* * *

 

GOB moves back to the yacht. She moves back in with Tobias.

They don’t share a bed. They’re still fucking.

They fall into a rhythm. They keep going with this—whatever this is.

 

* * *

 

She comes with his mouth on her cunt in the front seat of the stair-car, her hair sticking to the window and she slams her wrist on the dashboard, hard, and he breathes heavy against her.

(In the back of a grocery store parking lot on a Sunday, her top slid down, her breasts bare; he unzips his pants, pulls them down past his hips, and just as quickly, he slides her over and onto his lap, roughly, up in her. Her back hits the steering wheel. The sun finally sets.)

 

* * *

 

She goes down on him quickly (read: sloppily) in the master bedroom early one evening. George Michael is doing homework, Maeby is, well, somewhere, and it really doesn’t matter where Tobias is.

He comes with a muffled shout and she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and he breathes heavily as he zips his pants.

They don’t say anything (he holds the door for her as they leave the room, both checking over their shoulders like this is a bad spy movie or cop drama).

GOB is in the kitchen. Lindsay takes a giant swig of orange juice; she can still taste him on her tongue.

Michael blushes.

 

* * *

 

Two fingers deep and a thumb against her clit, she comes in the women’s bathroom of El Burrito Loco with a sharp cry of "Michael!" she’d rather not have said.

 

* * *

 

His teeth against her shoulder, and this time, it’s his office, blinds drawn, fluorescent lights on and unforgiving. She can hear Kitty through the walls and Michael’s desk chair tips back as she leans forward above him.

 

* * *

 

Every time it ends the same: he’ll button his pants after tucking in his shirt; if he was wearing a tie then he’ll fix that, too. She’ll smooth her hair out, both hands at the crown of her head, and as he refastens his belt he’ll say, "That was the last time, Lindsay. I mean it."

And she’ll say, "Of course you do, Michael," and she’ll smile and he won’t (instead he’ll duck his head a little and rub the back of his neck and she’s not kind enough to ignore the fact he’s blushing).

Then, he’ll go back to work or back to the banana stand or back to the family in general and she’ll lie down on the couch and read last week’s _TV Guide_ , counting off in her head all the reasons this is wrong:

One, she’s married; two, he’s her brother; three, he’s her twin brother—

She never makes it past number three (there’s already too much wrong here).

 

* * *

 

This publicist—Lindsay has already forgotten her name—wears her sweater about her shoulders like a J.Crew reject and Lindsay sips her drink, the alcohol strong, and silently pities her from the couch, her husband and her older brother next to her.

GOB announces that Michael’s only slept with four women, and she can feel the laughter bubbling up, because, really. It’s five now. It’s five and they don’t even know, they don’t have a clue, and Michael looks horrified and The Publicist keeps talking with her white teeth and her flat-ironed hair and there is no way this woman is better than Lindsay.

Glass at her lips and no one's paying attention: this is when she realizes she should probably stop this.

 

* * *

 

They fall into a rhythm—whatever this is.

Only, this time, he turns the tables on her and suddenly she’s the one with the moral compass and he’s the one slipping by the wayside.

 

* * *

 

"We can’t do this," she tries to say, against his lips, against his teeth, and he bites her lip, pulls away.

"Please," he hisses in her ear, and he doesn’t even try to disguise the desperation; her chest feels tight, his belt buckle bulky under her fingers and it’s not supposed to go this way. She’s the one who makes the bad decisions and he’s the one that orders her back on track.

 

* * *

 

Late one night the air conditioning kicks back on with a start.

Fifteen minutes later, Lindsay shivers and pulls the covers over her head and tries to close her eyes.

(Pay attention: this is a sign the end is near.)

 

* * *

 

It’s official: Michael isn’t as mild-mannered in bed as she assumed he would be. At all.

He isn’t tender or loving or careful or any of those sweet things the April issue of _Cosmo_ said he should be.

(She does wonder though, and this is the embarrassing part, that if she was anyone else, if maybe—just maybe—he would be.)

 

* * *

 

She’s considering taking Teamocil again.

 

* * *

 

They don’t eat as a family. They haven’t, for some time now. But, tonight, for whatever reason, the dinner table of the model home is crowded and the decorative plastic turkey sits in the center of the table surrounded by buckets of greasy chicken.

Lindsay sits across from Michael. She can’t look at him, and it’s just the opposite of how it has always been because he keeps his eyes pinned on her and the fork feels heavy in her hand; she can’t swallow.

He makes her feel very small. It’s not a good thing.

 

* * *

 

The family dinner falls apart quickly, with Lucille staring quizzically at a plastic fork and the revelation that Buster’s juice, is in fact, wine, coupled with the simultaneous introduction of GOB’s newest trick, that somehow, impossibly, involves a miniature turtle.

This is bedlam.

(She excuses herself; she blames the chicken.)

 

* * *

 

Michael meets her in the bathroom, and somehow, yes, this story has come to this.

"What?" she snaps as the lock clicks into place and hands in his pockets he turns to face her. He arches an eyebrow and tilts his head to the left a little, and, okay, she gets it. He’s angry.

"We can’t do this anymore, Michael," she says and the words come out in a rush. "I mean it."

"Of course you do, Lindsay," he says, and she gets that he’s angry, because, well, she started this, but it’s not like he wasn’t a willing participant.

(It doesn’t matter though, because Buster shatters something in the kitchen and they can hear it from inside the bathroom and she slams her head against the closet door as Michael fucks her, whispering steadily along her collarbone, "What are we doing what are we doing what are we doing?")

 

* * *

 

At one point or the other, Lindsay finds herself in a dressing room at Neiman’s or Saks’s or some other high-end, high-priced boutique, spending money she doesn’t have on things she doesn’t need. She has a mismatched underwear set on (blue bra, green lace panties) and a hickey above her left breast and her hair has tried to frizz in the humidity and she could almost pass as a white Diana Ross at this point. The curtain that serves as a door and privacy for the rich and over-privileged flutters in the air-conditioning and goosebumps raise along her arms.

"So," she says, hip cocked, hand on her bare hip, right above the line of green lace. "I’m, like. In love with my brother."

She doesn’t feel any better. (Neither does the woman in the changing room next to her.)

 

* * *

 

She really had wanted to save girls with low self-esteem.

 

* * *

 

She can still make Michael laugh and she can still make him blush.

Funny though. It never used to hurt before.

 

* * *

 

She wants to return to the fortuneteller or whatever you call the woman with the bad hair and the equally bad fashion sense; ask for her ten dollars back.

She already knows how this is going to end:

Eventually, things will do what they always do: return to normal. Her father will be released from jail or disappear under a false identity to Mexico or maybe some obscure Eastern European country and her mother will return to the club and drink martinis for brunch and Buster will keep on living with his mother and studying fossils and chunks of rock and languages no one wants to speak or hear. GOB will go broke, borrow money, go broke again, keep performing magic tricks, and maybe, just maybe, end back up in jail. Again.

Michael will meet a woman just like his first wife and they’ll fall in love and they’ll get married and they’ll move into a real house—not a fake one—and they’ll have things like pot roast for dinner and George Michael will have a mother again and they’ll be happy, happy, happy.

Lindsay will stay married to Tobias; Maeby will continue to resent her. Lindsay will drink a lot. Let’s be honest here: Lindsay will probably turn into her own mother.

(She wants her ten dollars back.)

 

* * *

 

She really had wanted to save herself.

 

* * *

 

There are these things that Lindsay never says—

Uncertain things like ‘I love you,’ ‘I forgive you,’ ‘good-bye’—‘I'm sorry’—

because, really, let's not be silly nor naïve: Lindsay Bluth is one of the most desperately insecure women you might ever have the misfortune to meet.

Michael says it's over, or maybe it's her; it doesn't matter because it's over and they don't meet in bathrooms and he doesn't look at her like he might mean it (whatever _it_ is) and they don't kiss with their eyes shut and she doesn't wear scarves anymore.

The important thing here? They never talk about it.

She buys a pair of shoes instead.


End file.
